nditions, the pipe has followed triumphantly in
their wake; but the last ditch of the old prejudice has been found in
the convention, which, in certain places and at certain times, admits
the cigar and cigarette of fashionable origin, but bars the entry of
the plebeian pipe--the pipe which for two centuries was practically
the only mode of smoking used or known.

An article which appeared in the _Morning Post_ of February 20, 1913,
may be regarded as a sign of the times. It was entitled "A Plea for
the Pipe: By one who Smokes it." "I should like," said the writer,
"pipe-men of all degrees to ask themselves whether the time has not
really arrived to enter a protest against the convention which forces
the pipe into a position of inferiority, and exalts to a pinnacle of
undeserved pre-eminence the cigar, and still more the cigarette ...
why should it be considered a mark of vulgarity, of plebeianism, to
inhale tobacco-smoke through the stem of a briar, and the hall-mark of
good breeding to finger a cigar or dally with that triviality and
travesty of the adoration of My Lady Nicotine--a cigarette?" To these
questions there can be but one answer: and the future, there can be
little doubt, will emphasize that answer, and abolish the unmeaning
convention.

The prejudice against the pipe is not confined to places of indoor
resort. There are many men who smoke pipes within doors, who yet would
not care to be seen in London smoking a pipe in the street, or in the
park. In some circumstances this is quite intelligible. The writer of
the _Morning Post_ article remarked with much force and good sense
that "Apart from social environment, there is a certain affinity
between pipes and clothes. It is considered 'bad form' for a man in a
frock-coat and silk hat to be seen smoking a pipe in the streets. If
you are wearing a bowler hat and a lounge suit you may walk along
with a briar protruding from your lips, and no one will think ill of
you. If you are a son of toil garbed in your habit as you work, there
is nothing incongruous in a well-seasoned clay or a 'nose-warmer,'
which, for convenience, you carry upside down. Not so very long ago it
was considered unseemly to smoke a pipe at all in the street unless
you belonged to the humbler orders, who inhale their nicotine through
the stem of a clay and expectorate with a greater sense of freedom
than of responsibility."

At a few clubs there are still some curious and rather unmeaning
r